When Nancy Mairs published her spiritual autobiography Ordinary Time, Kathleen Norris greeted it in the New York Times Book Review as a remarkable accomplishment, calling Mairs a relentlessly physical writer, as fiercely committed to her art as to her spiritual development. A Dynamic God is Mairs’s return to the subjects of religion and spirituality–a passionately individual book of meditations on a life of engaged faith.
A Dynamic God owes its power to Mairs’s sensitivity, her attention to detail, her honesty about herself. Wheelchair-bound with multiple sclerosis, she is increasingly unable to take care of herself. Throughout the essays here, she touches on these and other issues to get at not just the roots of her progressive Catholicism–Dorothy Day is a favorite role model–but the nature of faith in a world where it often doesn’t seem to be rewarded, where ‘most of us face, from time to time, more than we can handle.’ –David Ulin, Los Angeles Times
An eloquent and witty account of a spiritual quest to find the holy within and without. It suggests a way back to the sacred for Catholics of all varieties. –Margaret Regan, Tucson Weekly
For those struggling with contradictions between organized religion and their personal beliefs, this testament to living an intimately unique brand of Catholicism will be welcome reading. –Booklist
Mairs is an extraordinary woman … able to write with passion about a God that others in her position would have walked away from a long time ago … Her self-deprecating humor is wonderful–much like the writing of Anne Lamott, although Mairs manages to create her own style. –Publishers Weekly
Early in the book, the author states that her intent is to throw wide the door for the Holy One to enter. She has done that and much more. –Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality and Practice